LifeTopix is an all-in-one productivity app for iPad and iPhone. We have many customers who follow David Allen’s Getting Things Done® (GTD) method and use LifeTopix to stay organized and productive. Many of these customers ask about the most efficient ways to use LifeTopix for GTD® and our best practices.

GTD, LifeTopix, Reflecting and Weekly Reviews

David Allen rewrote the “Getting Things Done” book for 2015 and beyond, which was originally published in 2001. In addition, LifeTopix has evolved since we first published the popular post, “Best Practices for Getting Things Done – Weekly Review” in 2013. We strive to keep our customers up-to-date and hope you enjoy the new information we’re providing for you today.

We previously published three posts described below. We encourage you to read those posts before diving into this one:

Master Reflecting and Weekly Reviews

In Allen’s book, “Getting Things Done,” he dedicates a chapter to “Reflecting”. In this chapter, he stresses that you must review your system on a regular basis to ensure it is current and functional. He describes what to look at and when, and he communicates the power of the “Weekly Review.” The video below explains, in detail, how you would use LifeTopix to perform the actions he describes in this chapter of “Getting Things Done.”

Watch the Video

More to Come

In the next few weeks, we’ll be posting more videos and tips to assist you with utilizing LifeTopix for GTD. Please subscribe to the Life Blog to stay up-to-date.

GTD® and Getting Things Done® are registered trademarks of the David Allen Company. LightArrow Apps are not affiliated with or endorsed by the David Allen Company.

LifeTopix is an all-in-one productivity app for iPad and iPhone. We have many customers who follow David Allen’s Getting Things Done® (GTD) method and use LifeTopix to stay organized and productive. Many of these customers ask about the most efficient ways to use LifeTopix for GTD® and our best practices.

GTD, LifeTopix and the Organizing Phase

David Allen rewrote the “Getting Things Done” book for 2015 and beyond, which was originally published in 2001. In addition, LifeTopix has evolved since we first published the popular post, “Best Practices for Getting Things Done – Master Organizing” in 2013. We strive to keep our customers up-to-date and hope you enjoy the new information we’re providing for you today.

We previously published two posts described below. We encourage you to read those posts before diving into this one:

Master Organizing

The video below discusses the “Organizing” phase. When you organize actions and reference material, think about how you would sort these items into various areas. In an earlier post, we discussed using LifeTopix to define each collected item as actionable or non-actionable. Once you’ve completed clarifying items, you can begin organizing them (or this may be done simultaneously in LifeTopix).

Watch the Video

More to Come

In the next few weeks, we’ll be posting more videos and tips to assist you with utilizing LifeTopix for GTD. Please subscribe to the Life Blog to stay up-to-date.

LifeTopix is an all-in-one productivity app for iPad and iPhone. We have many customers who follow David Allen’s Getting Things Done® (GTD) method and use LifeTopix to stay organized and productive. Many of these customers ask about the most efficient ways to use LifeTopix for GTD® and our best practices.

GTD, LifeTopix and the Clarifying Phase

David Allen rewrote the “Getting Things Done” book for 2015 and beyond, which was originally published in 2001. In addition, LifeTopix has evolved since we first published the popular post, “Best Practices for Getting Things Done – Processing” in 2013. We strive to keep our customers up-to-date and hope you enjoy the new information we’re providing for you today.

We previously published a post about how to capture and collect all the things that are in your head and how to get them outside your head in LifeTopix. It is titled “GTD Basics – Methods for Capturing Items in LifeTopix.” We encourage you to take a look at the previous post before diving into this one.

Today, we’re covering what to do with actions, projects and to dos that you’ve collected after you decide what they are and what you want to do with them. In David Allen’s book, he refers to this phase as “Clarifying.”

Watch the Video

Important Information About LifeTopix Integrations

We understand that many of you want to use LifeTopix at the office and you want to ensure that it works with the applications that you commonly use. This is why LifeTopix is integrated with many of your favorite apps and applications. You can access docs, tasks and notes in LifeTopix from Dropbox™, Google Drive or Box™; Toodledo®, Asana™ or Google Drive; and Evernote® or Toodledo®, respectively. And LifeTopix works seamlessly with iOS calendars and reminders.

More to Come

In the next few weeks, we’ll be posting more videos and tips to assist you with utilizing LifeTopix for GTD. Please subscribe to the Life Blog to stay up-to-date.

LifeTopix is an all-in-one productivity app for iPad and iPhone. We have many customers who follow David Allen’s Getting Things Done® (GTD) method and use LifeTopix to stay organized and productive. Many of these customers ask about the best ways to use LifeTopix for GTD® and our best practices. Today, we’re sharing tips for using LifeTopix to quickly capture ideas, to dos and other items that are in your head.

David Allen rewrote the Getting Things Done book for 2015 and beyond, which was originally published in 2001. In addition, LifeTopix has evolved since we first published the popular post, Best Practices for Getting Things Done – Capture and Collect in 2013. We strive to keep our customers up-to-date and hope you enjoy the new information we’re providing for you today.

What is GTD?

If you’re not familiar with GTD, it’s “the groundbreaking work-life management system by David Allen that provides concrete solutions for transforming overwhelm and uncertainty into an integrated system of stress-free productivity,” according to David Allen’s website.

In Allen’s latest book, he lays out five key phases of the GTD process:

Capturing

Clarifying

Organizing

Reflecting

Engaging

Our post today focuses on the “Capturing” phase of GTD and describes the many ways that you can capture items in LifeTopix that are on your mind. Essentially, Allen states that it’s important to capture these items “outside your head.”

Watch the Video

Minimize Collection Buckets for Capturing Information

LifeTopix is an excellent app for capturing information simply because it organizes information all into one place. In Allen’s book, he states that you should minimize the number of collection buckets that you use to capture things to do and things on your mind. With LifeTopix, you can manage a variety of different types of information, which makes it ideal for minimizing those buckets.

As you know, information originates from several different channels, which results in many collection buckets. In some cases, these buckets can be multiple mobile apps and web-based applications. You receive messages from friends, family and colleagues. You check social media. You discover things on the web. And you receive information from other places — sometimes, it’s great ideas you’re thinking about.

The LifeTopix app combines email, social media, to do lists, your schedule, projects, tasks and more into one place. The many integrations, which include Evernote®, Toodledo®, Dropbox™, Box™, OneDrive™ (SkyDrive), Asana™, and Online Docs, are also helpful for minimizing the places where you collect information. For example, if you use Evernote® for note collections, you can easily manage those notes from LifeTopix.

More to Come

In the next few weeks, we’ll be posting more videos and tips to assist you with utilizing LifeTopix for GTD. Please subscribe to the Life Blog to stay up-to-date.

When I first heard about Gettings Things Done® (a.k.a., GTD® — the organizational method devised by David Allen), I knew it was something in which I would be interested. I have a lot going on in my life so I’m always on the lookout for anything that can help me be more efficient and effective.

Not to detract from the multiple books David Allen has written about GTD, but the key concepts about GTD can really be boiled down to control and perspective — “control” meaning gaining the upper hand over all the really important information in your life, and “perspective” meaning looking at that information in a way that lets you focus on the right set of priorities.

One key part of GTD is that it must be easy to capture, monitor and access all the information about the things that you need to get done. That can be accomplished with just about any kind of tool, including the paper-based implementation of GTD that the folks over at the David Allen Company describe for those luddites who crave organizational enhancement. Making it easy to record, monitor, and view all your information is precisely what LifeTopix is all about, so I was especially interested in how I would be able to use it to implement GTD. Here’s how:

For the “control” part of the methodology, GTD advises that as you come up with ideas, you should quickly capture them, deferring planning and classification to a later time. This allows you to get those ideas out of your head so your mind remains “uncluttered” and you can be more effective at the task at hand. Of course, I have always referred to this as “I need to jot this down before I forget”. 🙂 The LifeTopix Quick Inbox is perfect for this.

This week, I had three things that I thought of that I wanted to do at some point. Rather than get distracted from what I was doing at the time I thought of them, I captured them all in the LifeTopix Quick Inbox.

We’re expecting a baby in a couple months, so I created a Quick Inbox item titled “Get nursery ready”. I didn’t set an Act By date to begin with, but I know we need to get that done sooner rather than later, so I set the When to Soon.

Doing my taxes is always quite involved. I created a Quick Inbox item titled “2011 taxes” so I could plan a project for that and all the tasks associated with it. I wanted to get started on defining that project well in advance of the April 15th filing deadline, so I set the Act By date to March 15, 2012, and set the When to Someday.

We need to get a new TV, but I always like to research electronics purchases before we make them, so I created a Quick Inbox item titled “Research new TVs”. I didn’t set an Act By date to begin with, and that is not an urgent item, so I set the When to Someday.

This is what my Quick Inbox looked like after all that:

Later, I went through my Quick Inbox items and specified more information.

I converted the “Get nursery ready” item to a project with a start date of December 15, 2011, and created tasks within that project for painting the room and getting everything set up. Then I added shopping items to that project for the paint supplies, bassinet, and other items we still need. Finally, I set the category to “Baby” to help with the perspective part of the GTD methodology I would be doing.

I converted the “2011 taxes” item to a project with a start date of February 1, 2012, and an end date of March 30, 2012. I added tasks to that for gathering my documents, purchasing my tax software, and completing my tax return. I set the category to “Finances”.

I converted the “Research new TVs” item to a task with a due date of February 4, 2012 so we would have it by the Super Bowl. I set the category to Media > Equipment Upgrade.

LifeTopix makes it very easy for me to see the items I should be working on now via the What’s Next view. I have mine set to show me items for the next 7 days, so this is what it looks like after I went through my Quick Inbox:

LifeTopix does a great job of letting me implement a GTD methodology. I have control because I am able to capture all my todo items easily so nothing falls through the cracks, and the touchpoints between all the topics is perfect for allowing me to leverage related information without having to re-enter it multiple times. I have multiple perspectives because while I often need to view things from a time view (what I need to do now, what I need to do tomorrow, what I should do if I find myself with some spare time, etc.), I also like to view them from a category view (what baby-related activities I have scheduled, what finance items I have to work on, what items can I work on while I’m at the office, etc.).

– An Ultimate Productivity Approach.

GTD devotees know that there are 5 phases to mastering workflow – Collect, Process, Organize, Review, and Do. But how you apply technology to the task of actually putting these 5 phases into practice?

We propose a system that takes an organic view of productivity to more truly reflect how we get things done in life. This system takes into account all the real-life elements of getting things done – things beyond notes and lists of tasks. For example, with something as complex as planning an event (like a birthday party or wedding), going on a family vacation, or embarking on a large household project (major landscaping improvements), tasks and notes with simple reminders only take you so far. Many more elements are involved, such as services utilized, managing the providers for those services, shopping, bookmarks, sharing with and managing event co-hosts, travel companions, or project team-mates, in addition to a comprehensive calendar view of everything with proper reminders.

LifeTopix does 5 things to make it all come together more naturally.

Quick Inbox

Touchpoints

Dashboards

Device Integration

Social Collaboration

Let’s quickly take a look at each concept.

1. Quick Inbox

It’s not just about quickly entering something to be processed later. It’s about capturing an item that can become anything – a project, a trip, and event, etc. While it resides in the Quick Inbox, it can be marked as something to be done soon, or someday, it can be given a type from the beginning, it can be converted later into a specific type, and it can be managed in the inbox to track the next action date, while simultaneously being managed from whatever topic the item got converted into.

2. Touchpoints

Once it’s converted, the ability to associate all items with it in the app as it naturally does in real life, is key. To be able to manage shopping for a trip from within the trip, manage tasks, reminders, checklists, appointments, bookmarks, media, services, providers, notes, files, and share with participants from within the trip, from the same app, is priceless. Touchpoints are exactly that.

3. Dashboards

Across everything you are doing/planning/thinking, across everything you need to know, configurable dashboards put it all together in helpful panes like What’s Next, Recently Updated, and Quick Access to the most popular items from a a single place. The power of expensive business apps in the palm of your hands for organizing your personal life redefines what a top productiviy app does.

4. Device Integration

Use the contacts in your device directly, while knowing how the people in your life are associated with things you do over time – trip companions, event attendees/hosts, task owners, project mates, service relationships (doctors. plumbers, etc). Take advantage of the device calendar in a way that fully integrates it with all things managed in the app. Utilize location to know errands, shopping and other location relevant items. Whether at home or on the go, get more from your device to manage the information in your life.

5. Social Productivity

Facebook, Twitter, MobileMe, Google Docs, Dropbox – the list keeps growing. By using your favorite social and cloud apps directly from the things you do and need to know, usher in a level of productivity impossible to imagine with simple apps that do one thing only – like manage tasks, or keep lists, or just jot down notes. Go pro. Check out LifeTopix – tell us what more you want from this new kind of app.